- Dan:
- "The Lawful looter says, `They can't get all of us.' The Chaotic looter says, `They won't get MEEEEEE!!!!!...'"
The war was over, and Marakeel's fabled crystal dome was cracked. Seemed like a good time for the folks in Marakeel to make a show of force to make people think twice about trying to take advantage. And that rebel city Banzeel might make a good target.
- Beeel:
- "A city is just like the wilderness, except that it's a bit more difficult to tell the bad guys from the good guys. It isn't any more dangerous. Really."
The party had recently hijacked a shipment of peculiar earth to prevent a group of stone giants from reinforcing the city's defenses against the Westerners. Now they wanted Banzeel reinforced against Marakeel, so decided to sell the dirt to Elbleem/Silvator, allowing him to purchase the services of the stone giants on the city's behalf.
The ranger and equine types headed off to wait in Lifeblood while the others joined the line of people heading into Banzeel. G used seeming to disguise himself as a human merchant/mage, Silvana as a Helibane priest, Stealth as a human archer/skirmisher, and...
- Steve:
- "Lorcan wants to look like a foppish dandy with no apparent purpose in life."
- Dan:
- "Okay, but what do you want the seeming to do?"
Ganeth got the dirt past customs as a shipment of enhanced soil being delivered to the House Jeltha warehouse. One of the guards offered to show Lorcan the sights and got a nice tip. Another approached Beeel, gave him a silver piece, and started trying to pump him for information about frictions within Jeltha. Rogroc got through as Lorcan's bodyguard ("I hit things"), and Silvana and Stealth got through without trouble (especially after Silvana dropped a clw on one of the guards). The party also picked up a few snippets of Banzeel gate guard philosophy:
- "I visit all the local Evil temples. They're the only ones that can hurt you."
- "Crush those beneath lest they rise up and defeat you."
- "Evil triumphs, because Good is weak."
- "Evil turns upon itself, but Good is always at the bottom."
- Silvana:
- "The Waterfall runs everyone over eventually."
Fraxiz made contact with the party and brought them to a rundown warehouse the gnomes had rented; it had previously been used to hide stolen horses.
- Lorcan:
- "Couldn't you have found something a little more salubrious?"
- Silvana:
- "We specifically requested this type of accomodation."
- Lorcan:
- "Did we request this type of smell?"
They'd also acquired a young human guide.
- Death:
- "`Death' isn't my real name. I chose it because it sounds cool. I've been working for the Revolution for over a year. I've killed 7 gate guards. Death to the Imperialists!"
- Fraxiz:
- "She was promoted to 1st level two weeks ago and is still excited about it."
- Death:
- "Hey! Don't leak my background to these people!"
- Fraxiz:
- "They need to understand that you're not some untrained goon."
- Death:
- "Oh, ok. How long have you guys been working for the revolution?"
- Lorcan:
- "I have been revolutionary all my life."
Lorcan and Beeel headed out with Death to find a courier to deliver a message to Elbleem/Silvator. (Despite Ganeth's suggestion, the note did not say, "Dear Elbleem: We got a load of dirt, and naturally, we thought of you.") Death wanted to save ten minutes by scrambling over rooftops and so forth.
- Beeel:
- "We're not in such a rush here. Let's take the normal route, not the route that gets us spotted and identified as criminals."
- Death:
- "The revolution has to be daring and bold."
- Lorcan:
- "No point attacting undue attention. The revolution also has to be subtle and secret."
- Death:
- "We must seek adventure in the most mundane matters to hone our skills."
- Erich:
- "No wonder they're getting their butts kicked."
They dropped off the letter at Mistral Courier Services (about a block from Jeltha HQ), headed back, and were jumped by a pair of thugs who'd been shadowing them. (Beeel and Lorcan had noticed them earlier; Death had not.) Beeel disarmed them both in their own surprise segment. They were off-duty gate guards who were trying to apprehend Death, but they concluded there was a case of mistaken identity and left.
A while later, our heroes picked up the reply and learned that Elbleem was willing to pay 10kep and take delivery that night. This was also the price of the teleport mat the party had previously ordered through Elbleem, making for an almost cashless transaction. (Elbleem also bought the horses and carts for 500ep.) And the party was back outside Banzeel by 8pm, with arrangements to meet Fraxiz in Lifeblood in three days.
The Lifeblood contingent encountered a group of normal wolves that night. Thorongil used his animal empathy to convey a basic "leave us alone" message, and though they heard lots of wolves in the area, none of them approached again.
The party regrouped in the forest the next day. Ganeth teleported Rogroc, Lorcan, and Pepper to the Hollerith temple and returned to the mat with Kelmin. While he was gone, the party received a visit from the a woman with a wolf half-mask who said her name was Lupia, the party was in her domain, and everyone was welcome as long as they didn't harm the locals. She mentioned that she'd recently been entrusted with the area, tried to get information about what the party's plans were (though she only found out they'd be in the forest for a few days and then leaving), offered some goodberries (which were declined), and departed.
- Lupia:
- "I am pleased to meet you. No doubt there will come a time when I am in need of your assistance, and you will be as free with your aid as I was today."
Kelmin was introduced to the newer party members and hypothesized that Zenig got his current form from a deck (which I suppose is as good a guess as any). She seemed to enjoy discussing Nuket and elven deities with Lorcan. But overall,
- Kelmin:
- "Although I certainly look forward to working with all of you in the upcoming mission, it is my sincere hope that it goes completely uneventfully."
The following day, G did a sending to Fraxiz to check on last-minute problems (there weren't any) and Silvana scried the Nirduk base area (nothing showed up). The day after that, the party met up with the gnomes on the road in Lifeblood, most of the grey elves' spells went into summoning the cloudship and a Chariot of Sustarre, and everyone headed out. (Eastern roads make good runways.)
The flight to the Nirduk base passed without incident, and everything looked quiet. Unfortunately, Silvana's see unseen revealed an aerial servant hovering above the base and an invisible cow with metallic scales quietly chewing her cud on the roof. (Nice to know Kharnzeel's still keeping to his air and earth themes.)
- Gita:
- "No wonder G's twin decided not to follow up on the vault. A gorgon could wipe out an entire party of people."
- Rahul:
- "But notice that the monsters are all discreet -- it's not like the beauty of the place is being marred by random nasties. And they are so well-behaved too."
On the plus side, the covered stairway up the side of the plateau appeared intact (though one would expect it to be heavily trapped).
The party moved 15 minutes (flying time) away and set up camp. The gnomes played with the cloud material and trashed it, finding no weird evil grubs in the process.
As he slept that night, Zenig dreamed of flying over a city at night. He heard chanting behind him, felt some pain, lost his wings, fell toward a lot of angry people in a city square, and woke up.
Ganeth received a whispering wind during his guard shift:"Dear Ganeth; Disappointed with current interactions between Nirduk Clan and present occupants. Willing to arbitrate so that mutually beneficial resolution may be reached. --The Bridge"
Since the spell didn't allow a reply, G made a brief obscene gesture for the benefit of whoever happened to be scrying.
The next day, the party walked back toward the base. Along the way, they encountered a lone troll and killed it in roughly 36 seconds.
Kelmin and gnomes decided to chill at the base of the plateau, and the rest of the party went into a flurry of precasting and activation before flying up to engage the guardians. The cow turned out to be nastier than a standard gorgon (10HD, AC0, 2 d6 kicks, 2d4 bite, 2d6 gore, trample 1x/turn, petrification breath 4x/day), plus it was stoneskinned and its scales rusted metallic weapons. The party won anyway (thanks in part to the stacked effects of prot paralysis and free action).
The party ferried Kelmin and the gnomes up to the plateau, where the gnomes bargained for gorgon scales and other interesting biomagicotechnological bits. Kelmin took out a detailed architectural map of the base area, and Ganeth tried to estimate where the vault door would be.
Fraxiz offered the services of a weak but intelligent pudding to scout the area. When poured on the ground, it tries to sink for 5 rounds (though it can't pass through stone or metal) and then rise for 5 rounds; then Fraxiz drinks it and finds out where its been.
- Silvana:
- "How about 15gp? I take it that this isn't `find the path'."
- Fraxiz:
- "25 gp is a bargain, trust me. The stuff tastes vile."
Life turned out to be a little complicated. There was a 2'x2' slab of rock about 10' down, lying above the vault (with no information on how long it was -- a very unusual shape for a rock formation, according to the gnomish experts), and the vault itself was buried more deeply than expected (about 25-30' down) and tilted 30 degrees from the horizontal.
Apparently getting inside the Vault was going to be very difficult, especially if it was lying face down. But rather than being an enclosed structure that needed to be taken apart, it now seemed that the vault's extension in normal space could simply be the door itself -- which would mean that it could be reduced and transported without ever being opened.
Thus, the revised plan: with breathtaking precision, Ganeth drops a shaft that misses the mysterious rock shelf (a.k.a. dormant creature of elemental earth?) but clips the bottom edge of the vault. A gnome is lowered with some magical clay to shore up the bottom of the shaft, while Silvana uses stoneshape to reinforce the top. Ganeth blasts reduces into the exposed portion of the door until it fails MR and shrinks, sliding down into the shaft. An unseen servant ties a rope around the reduced vault, everyone pulls it up, the antipicated astral guardians gate in, Ganeth teleports to the Hollerith temple with the vault and comes back to the mat in time for most of the combat. Simple, right?
The dig spell made the shaft perfectly (and the door was in fact face down). Ganeth lowered the sacrificial gnome (Ifix) in a harness to start with the clay, but as he reached the bottom, a brown snake-like thing (a bona fide Earth Worm, it turned out) same out of the wall, appearing to swim through the earth as if it were water. It also grazed the gnome, turning him to stone.
Ganeth used a reduce to shrink the gnome statue and then hauled it up, while Silvana finished reinforcing the top. G started casting reduces into the door, eventually getting it to shrink. As expected, this collapsed the unreinforced area. So he used a second dig spell to clear the bottom of the shaft again, and in an amazing stroke of luck (an 01 on a d100), the spell caught the reduced vault door and tossed it up with the rest of the rubble, leaving it balanced on the edge of the shaft.
That's when things got interesting.